


Ready for Takeoff

by Filmsterr



Series: Life with Ruby [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Established Relationship, Fear of Flying, M/M, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, airplane fic, dadstiel, that's not a thing but I'm making it one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 00:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15449331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filmsterr/pseuds/Filmsterr
Summary: Dean and Cas board a flight for a weekend away from their kids. Dean's in need of a little distraction.





	Ready for Takeoff

_“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the ‘fasten seat belt’ sign. If you haven’t already done so, please assure that your portable devices are switched off, or into flight mode. Please take your seat and fasten your seat belt, and also make sure your seat back and folding trays are in their full, upright position.”_

 

Dean pulled his cell phone out from his pocket and clicked the home button. The screen looked exactly the same as it had the last time he checked it, approximately ninety seconds before. The small, elderly lady beside him gave him a sideways glance, which Dean patently ignored. 

“Babe.” A hand touched his forearm, just barely resting against the fabric of his cotton shirt. It was soft and gentle and exactly what he needed, but also wasn’t helping him at all. “They’re fine.”

Dean gritted his teeth. “How do you know that?”

 “Because I have faith in that fact that we have raised three competent children who can survive a few hours on their own.” Cas paused for a moment’s thought, and then amended by saying, “Well, two competent children, and Cain. But he’ll get there. Someday.”

Dean rolled his eyes but he still wasn’t amused. He pulled his phone out again and cursed the lack of messages.

A flight attendant stopped at the end of their aisle and leaned down to address Dean. “Sir, you’re going to need to either power down your cellular device, or switch it into flight-safe mode.”

“Got ya,” Dean nodded at her, and then promptly proceeded to ignore her the minute she walked away.

“Anyway, your brother will be there tonight,” his husband continued from the window seat beside him, “What are you so afraid of? What could possibly happen in between the time that they come home from school, and tonight when Sam gets off work?”

Dean immediately raised his hand to begin counting off. “Let’s see: Roman and Cain get into some dumb argument over a video game, and crack each others’ skulls open. Ruby tries to throw a party and trashes the whole house. Any one of them touches the stove and burns the kitchen down. Ruby invites some delinquent boy over and gets knocked up--”

“That’s quite an afternoon you have planned for them,” Cas interrupted him. “I hope our weekend will be half as exciting as that.”

Dean’s stomach turned up into knots. “Babe, it’s not funny. I’ve never been away from them for so long. I just… I don’t…”

He knew he wasn't a perfect parent. There was loads of times that he messed up or told them the wrong thing or didn't know how to handle some overwhelming situation. But, at least when he was there, he _knew_ what was going on. When the fuck-up was his fault, his could see it all right in front of his eyes. There was some comfort in that. 

But this? Taking off for the weekend and leaving them behind? Who knew what they could get up to when he (and Cas, definitely moreso Cas) wasn't watching?

“I know.” Cas’ fingers remained on a steady, calming presence on his arm. “I’ve never been away from them either. That’s why we need this weekend so much. Sixteen years, and we haven’t had so much as two days away from them.”

Dean pursed his lips, thinking. Surely, that couldn’t be entirely true. “We had our honeymoon,” he pointed out as the flight attendants continued to buzz up and down the aisles, doing their last minute checks, and the tension in his body coiled tighter. 

“Three days up to a cabin by the lake where all we did was--”

“ _Cas_ ,” Dean whispered harshly. He gestured over to the old lady beside him. Cas shrugged, unbothered. 

“Whatever. All I’m saying is, I love our kids more than I could ever say, but I earned this weekend, and I intend to enjoy it.”

Dean shifted in his seat and grumbled. “Yeah, well. I don’t see why we can’t _enjoy it_ from my car.”

“Forgive me for choosing an hour-long flight instead of a ten-hour drive.” 

Cas had a funny little smile on his face, like he took pleasure in this or something; like he liked watching Dean grow more and more agitated the longer they sat in these stupid, cramped seats. A static-y announcement came over the PA system, and Dean could sense the wheels start to move the plane backward. He reached into his pocket one last time to check for any last minute messages from the kids, begging him and Cas to stay home. 

“You know,” the woman beside him butt in, “you’re supposed to switch your phone into flight mode.”

“Yeah, I know,” he ground out at her. She looked shocked by the gruffness, and shrunk back into her own space with a new sense of indignity. 

Cas leaned over Dean’s lap to address her a little more gently. “Please excuse him. He’s a little tense on airplanes.”

Now Dean rolled his eyes even harder. “That’s not-”

But the woman seemed to be charmed by Cas’ apology. She talked right over Dean to tell him, “Oh, believe me, I understand. My boy, Philip, he’s just got the biggest fear of flying. He just flat out refuses to get on an airplane. He has to drive all the way out to see me when he comes, even though he lives out in Dubuque.”

God, old people really loved to talk your ear off, Dean thought to himself. Here he was trying to have a panic attack in the privacy of his own mind, and this lady wants to give him a biography on her freaking kid. 

“Mm,” Castiel hummed. “We’ve got three of our own. They’re exhausting, aren’t they?”

The plane continued to move along the runway, the buzzing of the engines growing in volume. Dean let his eyes drift shut, figuring Cas was entertained enough by their seat companion to maybe leave him be for a minute. 

“They sure are,” chuckled the woman. She sounded delighted to have an excuse to keep rambling on about them. “But you miss it when they’re all grown up.”

Dean gripped the end of his armrest with all his might, and bit down so hard it hurt his teeth. Cas and the old biddie rambled on all the same, the sound circling in his ear like some tinny, irritating record. 

Any minute now they’d take off. Launch themselves into the sky at two hundred miles and hour, just praying that somehow they stay in the goddamn air despite all the laws of God and man that said they should be spiraling towards the ground in a circle of fire and despair. 

“Dean.”

He squeaked out a noise to let Cas know that he’d heard him. 

“Babe, I need you to loosen your grip.” Cas pried weakly at Dean’s fingers, but to no avail. He was not letting go of that armrest for anything in the world. “Look at your hands. It looks like you have five fat little parsnips attached to your palm. Am I supposed to find to find that sexy? Am I supposed to crave the touch of your freaky, blanched-white fingers?”

Normally, Dean thought that Cas really had a way with words. In this particular instance,he wasn’t exactly impressed. “Shut up.”

The plane sped up, the hum of the wheels consistent now. 

He felt hot breath curling into the shell of his ear, and he recognized this as Cas' calm, alluring tone. The one he normally used after arguments when he had to weasel his way back into Dean's good graces. “Just think," he sooothed, "Two hours from now, we’ll be at our hotel. We'll relax, we'll unwind, maybe a hot shower. And then wehead over to see my brother and check out the brewery and spend a relaxed night drinking good beer around other adults, for once.”

That did sound almost perfect. Dean definitely liked the picture of himself with a nice lager in hand, with Cas on his arm, talking about something other than homework assignements and home renovations, for a damn change. Perfect, except for one small detail… 

“You brother annoys me.”

“Fine. You’re hopeless.” He could hear the way Cas threw up his hands in desperation, even without opening his eyes. Cas sighed loudly, “Tell me more about how the kids are destroying the house right now.”

That. That Dean could do. 

“Well, Roman probably snuck into Ruby’s room to read her diary again, so I imagine he’s been locked in the hall closet for about an hour by now. Even though I don’t know why he wants to read it so bad when he _knows_ there’s stuff in there he doesn’t want to know about-- and oh God, if he tries to ask me about menstruation again like last time--”

“It’s a perfectly natural bodily function,” Cas shrugged away Dean’s disgust, and asked, “And Cain? What’s he up to?"

“Another one of his “science experiments”, I bet. He always wants to show those off when Sam comes over. You remember last time? I was scrubbing baking soda out of the grout for a week.”

Cas hummed his interest again. “Oh, and I bet Sam is bringing Bones over.”

Dean’s eyes snapped open at the thought of muddy paw prints covering his nice, clean furniture. He sat up pointedly and turned to Cas. “I swear to God if he brings that mangy mutt into my--”

He stopped suddenly when his eyes caught a glimpse outside the window, where he saw nothing but smooth, soft-looking clouds. “Hey! We’re in the air!”

Cas smiled. “Look at that. Nice and smooth, huh?”

The old woman in the seat next to Dean was laughing heartily. “Those children of yours sound like a bunch of real hooligans.”

Dean turned towards her harshly. But then, instead of being short or snippy, he actually leaned back and sighed. “Yeah, well I know where they get that from.”

Ca shot him a look, which he pretended not to see. The woman was already reaching into the purse on the floor beneath her and pulling outher wallet, which was fat and too-stuffed with all kinds of things. “Would you like to see some pictures of my family?”

Dean could have said any number of things, including which was _blow off, lady, I’m trying to join the mile high club with my husband_ (which was definitely up for consideration, no matter what Cas said), but he didn’t. Instead he flashed her a toothy grin and said, “Sure.”

That seemed to just tickle her, and she launched right into a speech she must have told about a thousand people already. “Oh well. Now you see, I’ve got four of my own, three boys and one girl, and thirteen grandchildren in total- thirteen! And my Walter, bless his soul, he passed some years ago now…”

When they got off the plane, one blessedly short seventy-minute ride later, Dean took Cas’ hand into his and smiled wide at him. “Do you think we’ll be like that kooky lady when we’re old? Showing off pictures of our grandkids to strangers and talking their ear off about when our kids were little.”

“Well, I know you will be for sure,” Cas scoffed. “I think she knows all the kids’ astrological signs now.”

Dean stopped by the baggage claim and heaved a heavy sigh, laden with faux disappointment. “Guess that’s just a reason you can’t bring me on planes anymore,” he told Cas. 

But, per fucking usual, Castiel was much too smart for him. “Oh no. Now that I know the secret to distracting you, we’re going to take planes a lot more often." He leaned his head to the side and got a dreamy sort of look on his face. "I’m thinking: next stop, Disneyworld. With the kids, of course.”

Which Dean might thoroughly have protested to if he had the energy to do so. But he didn’t, so he let Cas start mentally preparing for their next vacation, even while they were still on this one. But, actually, he was pretty sure he had a pretty solid case against that particular destination. 'Cause for him, he was pretty sure that anywhere his family was, that was the happiest place on Earth.

Even if they did kind of burn down the kitchen while he was gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I just can't help myself.


End file.
